Chelsea Could Become The Barcelona Of The Premier League

Dominic Solanke’s £50,000-a-week wage demands brought about a lot of amusement from the social media world of football, with the unproven youngster’s seemingly delusional demand to remain with Chelsea.

Solanke would, no doubt, take a minimal increase on his current £7,000-a-week wage demands for guaranteed first-team football. However, the 18-year-old has seen so many youngsters in the Roman Abramovich era at Chelsea fall by the wayside, so is merely trying to force the issue and to insure he isn’t the next Josh McEachran.

You can understand Solanke’s concerns when you realise that, despite winning five of the last seven FA Youth Cup finals, only 10 players have gone onto represent Chelsea at senior level – with just four of them making it to double figures.

When you look at that list of players, the first thing you think is: ‘Isn’t Josh McEachran, like, 38 now?’ – nope, he’s merely 23. And then you look at the list and realise that other than perhaps, Nathan Ake, there isn’t too many successful players there – that also depends on how successful you deem being on loan at Watford.

The argument can obviously be flipped, though, to the one that continually faces fellow big stack bully, Manchester City. Chelsea ruin players and destroy their careers through lack of opportunities, and therefore, hindering their development.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek has emerged in recent months under Guus Hiddink, and despite looking like a talented individual, you’re inclined to think the midfielder’s emergence is purely because this season is a redundant one for the Blues.

When Antonio Conte comes in, steadies the ship and brings in players like Radja Nainggolan, will Chelsea afford themselves the risk and mishaps that come from a promising youngster finding his way like Arsene Wenger does? Probably not.

The Blues are clearly sitting on a wonderful scouting and youth system, continually producing a talented bunch. If they allowed themselves another season that wouldn’t necessarily bring success but would blood several of these talented youngsters, they’d no doubt reap the long term rewards.